Princess, Dad and I spent the last six nights of our holiday in Sanur, at Puri Sading, a nice little hotel of about 20 rooms. Our deluxe garden view rooms came in at USD56 per night with breakfast. At that price, you didn't get luxury, but what you did get were clean and comfortable rooms, excellent beds, okay breakfasts and a great location.
Puri Sading wasn't ideal for Dad. Even though he was on the ground floor, he had to climb a couple of steps to get to his room. Unfortuately, there was nothing nearby for him to hang on to and use to balance himself. He took to using the bamboo clothes rack as support, a silly thing to do, as it had no hope of supporting him - one night it toppled over under his weight, taking him with it. Fortunately he only fell lightly, and ended up with two lumps on his head where he hit it on a chair.
Dad's wheelchair turned out to be just as useless in Sanur as it was in Seminyak. After a stroll through Griya Santrian to the beach on the first morning, I abandoned all hope of Dad getting around easily in Bali. He ended up using the wheelchair as a walking frame; fortunately, we never had to walk too far to find somewhere to eat or drink. Right across the road were Wicked Parrot, Costa Rica and Starbucks. In the immediate vicinity were Warung Rib, Warung Pregina, The Porch, Bread Basket and Three Monkeys - and those are just the ones I can think of.
Poor old Dad probably spent more time reading on this holiday than he'd planned. Even though he didn't say so, I suspect he was getting mighty bored with a whole lot of inactivity. He decided he'd like to take a drive to the mountains one day, so we hired one of the drivers who touted their services outside the hotel. I told the driver we wanted to visit Tegallalang, so I could look for a lamp, then drive to Bedugul for lunch with a view, and stop in at the Candi Kuning market while we were in the area.
I could never remember this guy's name, even though we used him three times - two times too many, if you ask me. I shall refer to him as Mr Happy.
It wasn't that his car was compact to the point of squishy. Or that there was some sort of peeling film on the windows that distorted the outside view and made it look as though it was raining. And it wasn't so much that he always looked sad to the point of tears. What really bugged me about him was that he took you where HE wanted you to go, rather than where YOU wanted to go.
Okay, so he did take us to Tegallalang, as asked, where we saw lush rice terraces, and drove slowly up and down the road, looking for those Moroccan lamps with the cloth inserts. We were a bit early for most of the shops; however, I eventually found exactly what I was looking for. I bought a lovely lamp that radiates orange when turned on. It stands about 50cm tall, came with an Australian electrical fitting, and cost 110K.
As we were winding our way up the mountainside, I asked Mr Happy to take us to the Strawberry Cafe for lunch - I was in a strawberry kind of mood, and hopefully strawberries would be on the menu somewhere. He told me there were two strawberry cafes, a big one and a little one. Sadly, we wouldn't be passing either. He did, however, know of a nice restaurant with a view.
‘We're not interested in buffet,' I warned him.
‘No problem, you can order a la carte there,' he said.
Passing BOTH strawberry places on the way to the nice restaurant with a view, we pulled up at a big barn of a place built on several levels. The parking lot was crammed with buses, and dozens of schoolkids were unloading as we arrived. And guess what the restaurant was serving? Surprise, surprise: Buffet. Yes, we could order a la carte, but the staff were rushed off their feet coping with an invasion of Javanese students; and service was very, very slow.
My Dad's a frugal chap who likes a good deal. He discovered that it was much better value to order a large Bintang at 45K rather than a small one at 30. So he ordered a large beer and gado gado, while I opted for soup. Princess turned up her nose at everything vegetarian on the menu, and made for the toilets. Several minutes later she was back. ‘Mum, they have those squat toilets, and I'm NOT using them.' She refused to eat or drink, so I had my soup and watched Dad drink his large Bintang, cringing as the beer took effect and Dad began to crack inappropriate, politically-incorrect and totally unfunny jokes. Three of them! I couldn't get us out of there fast enough, especially as we had to go looking for Mr Happy, who was doubtless enjoying his free thank you meal for bringing us to the nice restaurant with a view.
‘Where to now?' our driver asked as we got back into the car. I told him we hadn't been to see the lakes yet.
‘You want to see the lakes?' This was obviously an unreasonable thing to ask. ‘But they're back that way... We can go if you REALLY want.' Of course I wanted to see the lakes; they're the main reason I always love going to Bedugul. But I would've felt like a real heel making him turn back. Besides, Princess was hot, crabby and hungry, and bursting for the loo.
So we went straight to Candi Kuning markets, where I knew for a fact that Princess could use clean, western toilets. I could too, and I did. Who cared that you had to pay to use them? I certainly didn't - those toilets were a little slice of heaven that looked good and smelled even better. You could sit in peace for as long as you liked, and escape that grubby, bustling market where touts followed you around, demanding you bought their watches, and where women grabbed you by the hair and dragged you into their shops. Two pees and two pashminas later (and 55K poorer) we cuddled the baby bunnies on sale at the market, jumped back into the car and gratefully drove back to Sanur.
That was our first big adventure in Sanur. For the next few days, we didn't do too much. Princess and I shopped, and we all ate well. She had her hair trimmed and dyed a fetching shade of pink, while I had an excellent foot massage at Camellia Spa. We walked up to Hardy's almost daily for souvenirs, mixers and ice cream.
The day before we were due to go home, Dad announced he'd like to go for another drive. ‘Where to this time, Dad'?' He wanted to drive to the beach. I'm sure the fact hadn't escaped him that we were already at the beach. So I asked him which one he wanted to see. He wasn't quite sure, but would leave it all up to me to decide. Wonderful. I think he envisaged driving along the cliffs, stopping every so often to admire the sun bouncing off the waves and the surf crashing on the shore. He wanted to feel the sea breeze in his hair and taste the salt in the air, yada yada. I pictured us stopping at some arty cafe so he could drink a large Bintang (because they're better value than the small), and we could all take in the rugged beauty of the coast.
So Dad went straight to Mr Happy and asked him to drive us. Dammit, not Mr Happy again. But the truth was that Mr Happy wasn't easy to avoid. Every time we went outside the hotel, there he was. And he expected to be our driver for the rest of the trip. Once we'd established we weren't interested in seeing Kuta or Seminyak beaches, Mr H drove us to Tanjung Benoa. ‘You can do water sports here,' he announced, stopping in a crowded car park to let us out. Somewhere out of sight was the sea.
Water sports? Dad's never been the sporty type. His first and only attempt at water skiing caused him to split his pants, much to his horror. He never tried again. Parasailing in a wheelchair was even less appealing. We didn't even get out of the car.
I suggested Mr Happy drive us to Uluwatu. Cliffs, sea views, maybe a nice spot for a drink or a snack. So off to Uluwatu we went. Straight to the Temple car park....
Ah yes, the Temple. They had sea views there... and monkeys... nasty, thieving brutes that bite.
We unpacked Dad's chair, while I relieved him of hat, specs, hearing aid and watch. I left my own sunnies and bag in the car too. Once I was satisfied we had nothing a monkey could possibly want to steal, we set off across the car park, in search of a sea view. Suddenly Princess shrieked. A monkey had leapt onto her foot and was trying to chew off her shoe. Oops, I didn't consider for a minute that her thongs had tiny glistening gemstones woven into them.
Locals good-naturedly jumped to her aid and hissed at the monkey. Monkey let her go and made a beeline for an elderly gent. It raced up his leg, snatched the cap from his head and whizzed up the nearest tree branch. Locals poked bananas at it from every direction. Monkey was not interested in bananas; the button on the cap was far more tasty and intriguing. Monkey climbed to the highest branch on the tree and went to work on destroying the cap.
We returned to the car before any other monkey could find an excuse to mug us.
Where to now? ‘How about we find somewhere pleasant in Jimbaran for lunch?' I said to Mr Happy. This was our lucky day, because he knew exactly where to take us. We drove to a remote spot on the beach and pulled up outside a restaurant that was so deserted I was sure it was closed. But it wasn't.
This was without doubt the grottiest place I'd been in for years. Downright depressing. Filthy tablecloths, stained placemats, dingy ornaments, flyblown calendars years out of date.
But at least we were on the beach. We couldn't sit outside because the day was too breezy, and it had begun to sprinkle with rain. But we could finally see the sea. AND IT WAS DISGUSTING. The wind scattered paper and plastic across the sand and whipped up the surf. Each wave carried something nasty ashore: broken thongs and condoms and driftwood and seaweed... and no doubt a corpse or two.
Beach cleaning was in process, and I could tell it was going to take a looooong time to get that beach fit for human use. A man and three women were on duty. The man had the right idea and worked efficiently and quickly, filling bags and taking them away for disposal. But the three gals? Oh my... they'd have a little chat about the best way to proceed. Then the first gal would hold open a rubbish bag, the second would slowly rake a few bits of plastic into a little pile, and the third would pick up one piece of rubbish, shake it for 30 seconds to remove every last grain of sand, and place it carefully in the bag.
The highlight of the trip was getting back to our hotel and eating.
We tried lots of new eateries over our week in Sanur. Kayu Manis, where I had a great laksa; The Porch, where I had a tasty chicken pie and mash; Three Monkeys, where we had no service. Given our distaste for monkeys, we should've known to avoid any restaurant with ‘monkey' in its name. But the restaurant and its menu looked so good that Princess and I thought we'd take Dad there for dinner that night. We changed our minds after waiting an hour for a very ordinary meal.
We also had dinner one night at CharMing, memorable mainly for its full-strength cocktails, irritating live entertainment who played bad Frank Sinatra at our table until I paid them go away, and freebies. Free lifts there and back, free appetisers - they even did a vegetarian munchie for Princess. At the end of the meal, our waitress arrived with three shot glasses on a tray. ‘Orancello,' she announced, setting down icy glasses in front of us. Princess took a mouthful and spluttered. ‘This is ALCOHOL!' she exclaimed indignantly, pushing away her glass.
‘Yes ... what did you think it was?'
‘I thought she said ORANGE JELLO!
All too soon our holiday was over, and it was time to pack our stuff and head back to the real world. The only thing worth mentioning about the trip home was Air Asia's Red Carpet service. From memory, it was a bit over $30 per person. You can't get it on Air Asia X flights, ie from KL to Melbourne. But for the trip from Dps to KL, it was worth every cent.
We bypassed the queues and went straight to a priority check-in counter. Our luggage was given a priority tag, which meant it came out first at Melbourne. Once we'd unloaded our cases, the Air Asia lady took us to buy our departure tax, took our passports to be stamped, and then escorted us to the Premier Lounge, where we were given two hours free access. Just before our flight left, someone came to the lounge to fetch us and escort us to the aircraft. I think we also scored a few extra meals too. All in all, Red Carpet Service was money well spent!
Not happy about being home again, but then I never am. Apologies for taking so long to finish this, but life has been frantic since getting home - in fact, I need another holiday.
I've left my email address open, in case anyone has any questions.
Sampai jumpa everyone
Meredith